Cultures tend to have a power balance between the genders that is largely based on how essential the role of that gender is to the group’s survival. Back in the day, it would seem that men hunted and women gathered. (Of course then, as now, there are exceptions.) In cultures that depended heavily on gatherable foods, women were accorded more prestige and power. In cultures where there wasn’t as much to gather (but where the hunting or farming men made a greater contribution), men had more prestige and power.
In temperate regions, you can see where it would naturally be a more equitable relationship because both are needed for survival. In harsher climates (such as where the Inuit live, for example, where there’s not much vegetable food growing and hunting is paramount), one can see why men would come to dominate. I can imagine this being true in a harsh desert climate as well, when activities like agriculture (as opposed to horticulture) and animal herding were seen as men’s work.
Since the Big Three Abrahamic religions all have a common source, all you really need is one warlike tribe to take the place over and then make conversion by the sword into a religious obligation, and you can see how it would come to take over large swaths of people all over the world. The OT Jews were quite warlike. Christianity looked for a while like it might not be, since Christ was famous for teaching women as well as men and treating them like they mattered (and this attitude was reflected in the early Church), but it was later taken over by those who seem to like Paul’s teachings better than those of Jesus. And Islam came from the same big harsh desert.
However, there are other religions not quite as testosterone-soaked as those. In some Buddhist countries, for example, they seem to have a more or less egalitarian viewpoint (it depends on the country, and you can even tell by looking at their Buddha statues). Women seem to also be very respected in many (but not necessarily all) Native American versions of spirituality. There is also room for female respect in many of the top religions by size.
It makes one wonder why, in today’s world where two paychecks are often necessary for a household’s well being, where women graduate college with science degrees more often than men, and more women have jobs than men, they are still willing to take the back seat to men in religion. Happily, the Unitarian Universalist religion is the first major faith group which has a majority of female clergy. Looks like religion is responding, slowly but surely. ;)